So I've been playing variations of this deck for the last two weeks and at my LGS (3 Swiss Events of 4 round each). So far I've had a "winning" record, going 2-1-1 and 2-1-1 at the Standard Event and the Standard Showdown event for the first week, and after changes going 3-0-1.
The first iteration of the deck played 22 lands, 4 Bristling Hydra's mainboard, 0 Moment of Cravings and a 3rd Hadana's Climb. Also, the sideboard lacked a second Golden Demise instead running a singleton of Nissa, Steward of Elements (I don't miss her card advantage with all the explore triggers). Last week the shop's meta was mostly aggro with a splashing of control players. So this week I changed the mainboard to what it is currently, gearing up for more aggro match ups by sideboarding a Bristling Hydra and replacing it mainboard with Moment of Craving as well as adding a second Golden Demise to the sideboard. I also felt confident to drop to 21 lands because of all the explore triggers. Finally I added 3 Wildgrowth Walkers to the mainboard mostly for their lifegain but also believing that in a Snek Explore shell they could become the next Longtusk Cub. Finally I cut 2 Blossoming Defense entirely. They act solely as a protection spell against removal, no longer playing the part of the added offense. Especially with Hadana's climb, Blossoming Defense as a pump spell felt more like a Win More. And...
... of course, my local meta has now changed. I played against 3 control decks out of 4 rounds, but was able to go under them game one and sideboard effectively to win either game 2 or 3 (I drew one game against a U/W Approach deck). The only aggro deck I played against was tribal cats which I trounced, so I'm still waiting to try my mainboard against a Red Deck Wins or the new RB Aggro decks.
Overall I'm loving the deck. It plays like a GB Explore deck but with the advantage of having 4 potential nukes in my 2 Hadana's Climbs and 2 The Scarab Gods. Once someone's figured out how to deal with one I'm usually dropping the other.
All suggestions encouraged and all comments are welcome.
